“Meta Insight” are a series of articles covering the differences between various Shadowverse deck archetypes, matchup statistics, common play patterns and their role in the metagame.

[ps2id url=’#dragon’]Dragon[/ps2id]    [ps2id url=’#forest’]Forest[/ps2id]    [ps2id url=’#haven’]Haven[/ps2id]    [ps2id url=’#sword’]Sword[/ps2id]    [ps2id url=’#portal’]Portal[/ps2id]    [ps2id url=’#shadow’]Shadow[/ps2id]    [ps2id url=’#blood’]Blood[/ps2id]    [ps2id url=’#rune’]Rune[/ps2id]    [ps2id url=’#stats’]Stats corner[/ps2id]

[ps2id id=’dragon’/]

Optional inclusions and tech cards

• Dawn’s Splendor is a tech card against Amataz Forest and Natura Haven that also has fringe applications against Natura Forest/Sword. Running at least 2 copies is necessary if you want a good shot at beating Amataz Forest, and the failure use case is still fairly reasonable, with the card being a vanilla 2-drop in matchups where the effect is not relevant.
• Disdainful Rending and Blazing Breath are generic tech cards against Amataz Forest and Sword/Haven in general. Having some early interaction has always been fairly important, but since Wildfire Tyrannosaurus is already a 3-of in any self-respecting Natura Dragon list, these 2 cards can be a little redundant. Generally speaking, most lists run 2-3 copies of some combination of the two, and I personally believe that Rending is more or less strictly better than Breath on ladder, but if you’re specifically trying to target Amataz Forest, for example, Blazing Breath can be better: for example, if the Forest player has all 5 board spaces filled with 3/2 Fairies after their Amataz turn, a Rending+Ian hand can’t clear the board, but a Blazing Breath into Ian can work without any additional ramp. On the other hand, 3 damage kills off a lot more things against the general ladder field than 2 damage does, and you can’t Ian into Blazing Breath for AoE (if you’re out of evos) the same way you can with Rending, so there is a trade-off, even if it may seem like a silly question to get hung up on (“Well, duh, 3 dAmAGe Is bETtER tHAn 2, yOu EedEEoT?!”).
• Shiva is a defensive tech card against Natura Haven and Shadow, which works well in a slower deck like Natura Dragon. A lot of midrange decks in the Rotation format can get away with playing 1-2xShiva because the card brings a lot of value on a vanilla 6-mana Ward, and Dragon gets the additional benefit of ramping into Shiva, which makes the redundancy issue of drawing multiple copies of the card a lot more bearable. With that in mind, Shiva is a fine 1-of in Natura Dragon.
• Ian, Dragon Buster is a tech card against midrange decks that go wide, such as Natura Shadow and Forest. The card itself is less efficient than the AoE option of Genesis Dragon and the healing option of Ian is worse than Pure-Voiced Dragoon, but the card has some added versatility of being able to choose between the 2 modes, as well as the fringe utility of bouncing allied followers when evolved. Ian also has some flexibility in the late game with Masamune, since you can use Masamune to heal for 3 and put up a 3/3 Ward, or push 2 extra face damage. If you save an evolve point, you can also bounce Dragon Chef at the same time, so Ian into Chef into evolve on the Ian heals you for 8, leaves 3 healing for next turn and puts up a Ward, similarly, with a Masamune on 10 and an evolve point, you can go Ian+Chef+Masamune, attack with Chef and Masamune, then evolve Ian, and still have a Chef+Masamune next turn, all while putting up a 5/5 Ward. Ian causes some of the more complicated sequencing in Dragon games, and the utility of being able to bounce Velociraptor/Masamune/Dragon Chef/etc. for value in slower matchups, as well as putting up 2 Wards with double Ian against Aggro/Roach Forest, or even pushing 2 face damage and dealing AoE damage to the board, makes it difficult to justify not running Ian as a 3-of.
• Dragon Chef is a tech card against Shadow/Haven/Dragon, usually played in the Confectioner slot. The difference between these culinary 3-drops is that Confectioner allows you to have fewer dead draws in the later stages of the game, while Dragon Chef lets you survive longer against decks with a lot of incidental face damage or reach in general. Both of these cards are fairly bad in the Dragon mirror and against Roach Forest/Leod Sword; Chef targets midrange decks in the format, but the exact balance depends on what field you’re facing. If you’re seeing a lot of Natura Forest/Sword, Confectioner is great (since Natura Forest doesn’t have a lot of reach and since it helps you dig for a second Valdain against Sword to answer Leod), and if you’re mostly facing Natura Haven/Shadow, 1-2xDragon Chefs are necessary to have a fighting chance in a 3xIan list.
• Hulking Dragonewt is mostly a tech card against Roach Forest and Natura Haven. In my testing, the card gets answered too often for my liking: most Roach lists run 3xSmite (which answer Dragonewt even when it’s evolved), a lot of Haven lists run 2xScripture, which is the cleanest answer, Imina is also a fine answer in lists that run it, and if you’re not ramping fast enough, an enhanced Daffodil or Featherfolk Punisher can ping it down without much effort as well. In my opinion, Dragonewt is an aggressively terrible card in the current Rotation format, but it could certainly become a lot better once Blackened Scripture and Angelic Smite rotate out while Dragonewt is still Rotation-legal. Oh, wait.
• Draconic Core, Aiela, Annerose and extra copies of Genesis Dragon are all optional inclusions, often run as 1-ofs, that improve the consistency of Overflow-enabled effects like Velociraptor/Dragon Oracle and pseudo-Overflow effects like Masamune. The most flexible option of the 3 is Genesis Dragon since it can also serve as an AoE against Forest/Haven/etc., but Draconic Core and Aiela can also be reasonably efficient. The weak point of these ramp effects is that they are all dead draws in the late game, and considering how you often have to trim cards like Dragon Chef/Confectioner/Neptune to fit in these cards, I generally believe that cutting good cards to fit in more highroll early game cards (in a deck with a lot of other highroll-y early game cards) makes the archetype less consistent in the long run.

Natura Dragon is overwhelmingly the best-performing deck in the current Rotation format, both on ladder and in tournament play. That is not to say that it doesn’t have bad matchups, however, as it loses games to decks it can’t interact with, such as Amataz/Roach Forest and Leod Sword. Generally speaking, Natura Dragon is the best deck of the Rotation format in terms of board interaction, and the deck has enough defensive tools where it can keep the board clear and enough healing to get out of range of reach from “fair” decks like Natura Forest/Sword/Haven. In tournament play, Natura Dragon is often the “primary” deck of most lineups, which makes its representation fairly high, and with good reason: a lot of Bo3 lineups are going to have at least one deck that is either vulnerable to Natura Dragon or your secondary deck, and even “beat Dragon” lineups (e.g., Amataz/Leod) can still lose a game if the Dragon player gets a good draw (e.g., draws double Dawn’s Splendor against Forest, or draws double/triple Valdain against Ambush Sword). All of these factors make Natura Dragon the best deck of the post-Agnes-nerf environment.

[ps2id id=’forest’/]

Regarding Machina Forest

Identifying cards: Robotic Bagworm, Robogoblin, Cleft, Dual Fencer, Mechaclaw Elf.

Machina Forest is not exactly a new deck, and the main additions to the archetype are Airbound Barrage and Irene, which slot in over the recently rotated Metera and the clunkier 2-drops like Robogoblin. Machina Forest has seen some fringe play in the recent stages of the expansion, and I don’t believe there is much reason to discuss the archetype, as it’s built and played very similarly to its pre-expansion counterpart, which has been covered in the Meta Insight article from 09/11.

Natura Forest is the second most popular deck in tournament play, however, it’s overall performance on ladder is not particularly impressive, primarily because of both Natura Dragon and Haven being unfavored matchups. Even with that in mind, the deck is still even to mildly favored against more or less every other deck in the Rotation format, because at its core, Natura Forest is the very definition of a fair midrange deck. Being a milquetoast midrange-y archetype is Natura Forest’s biggest strength: the deck doesn’t really brick (or run out of gas), can consistently interact with other proactive decks and is decent at developing the board, which makes it a decent choice for ladder play and a solid choice for secondary (as in, non-Dragon) deck for tournament lineups.

The rest of the mulligan logic is fairly straightforward: proactively playing cards on curve is generally good, primarily for “tempo = good” reasons, but also because it helps set up Amataz/Divine Smithing. The archetype generally doesn’t have good 2-drops, so keeping Avatar of Fruition is a higher priority than in Natura Forest, for example. Fairy Whisperer is better than Avatar for the combo setup, but it can’t trade into anything on curve, so it’s worse tempo and generally not ideal against proactive decks. Wellspring Elf Princess invokes May or gets you extra gas for the Divine Smithing/Amataz setup (the Wisp also works with Smithing), but evolving it when going first can be a little slow.

Optional inclusions and tech cards

• May, Eager Elf is an optional inclusion that helps against Natura Sword/Haven/Forest/etc. Since Amataz Forest usually runs a lot of 1-cost cards, invoking May can provide some incidental value and board control, and it can even serve as an extra 1-drop for the Divine Smithing setup. Running fewer copies than 3 can be somewhat risky as it’s not uncommon to invoke May twice in a game, so the standard build is 3xMay, but running fewer copies of the card does make it less likely to draw into it, so there is some merit to running only 2xMay.
• Miracle of Love is a versatile tech choice for the Aggro Forest mirror that also helps against generic midrange-y decks like Natura Forest/Sword/Haven/etc. Miracle is rarely a bad card against any deck, and the flexibility of being able to protect your face or your board of wheenies with a 4/5 Ward for 3 in the midgame turns, get trades in the early game and push through Wards in the late game is indispensable for more or less any sort of proactive Forest deck. The Enhance mode can occasionally also be relevant if the game drags out, but is generally too slow for the type of game Amataz Forest usually tries to play. A functionally similar (and more budget-friendly) option to Miracle is Insane Dark Elf, which also generates a Fairy and can do an extra point of damage, but is obviously a lot worse proactively. The current standard build for Amataz builds is 2-3xMiracle, with Insane Dark Elf occasionally played as a 1-of.
• Nature’s Guidance is an optional inclusion that helps with the “OTK” setup. The card can either bounce Amataz or Lily to generate a bit of extra damage, which is relevant against Dragon/Sword/Haven. Airbound Barrage is generally a way better card for that purpose because it affects the board state, but running a Guidance as a 4th Barrage is reasonably common.
• Wellspring Elf Princess is an optional inclusion that improves May, can generate 1-2 cards for the combo setup, and can function as a Fighter on turn 2. Amataz Forest in general has really few good 2-drops, and Wellspring Elf Princess is a pretty natural fit in a Forest deck that is already interested in generating Fairies and invoking May. The card is commonly run as a 1-of, and it’s not unreasonable to run 2 copies either.
• Tree-generating cards like Pathfinder, Fertile Aether and Ghastly Treant have seen fringe play in the early builds of the deck because they enable Blossom Spirit/Avatar of Fruition. Pathfinder is generally the best card in the category because it’s a proactive tempo play, but Fertile Aether has the benefit of helping to invoke May and Treant can generate a Fairy. Personally, I really dislike running Tree cards in Amataz decks, primarily because board space can often matter, even if the Water Fairy into Pathfinder into Blossom Spirit curve can be powerful; I believe that these cards makes you lose percentages in a lot of matchups despite the early game highroll potential.
• Dryad of the Grove is an optional 1-of that allows to set up a turn 6 Amataz. During the evolve turns, the card is effectively a 6/8 or a 6/10 for 5, and it can often get a 2-for-1 while generating 2 Fairies. The card is pretty narrow in its application, competes with Wellspring Elf Princess and is generally slow, but running a copy gives the deck a bit of extra oomph in the midgame, in a similar fashion to Miracle of Love/May/etc.

Amataz Forest is currently the second best-performing deck in tournament play (following Natura Dragon). The deck’s main strength is its ability to punish decks that stumble around with their early game curve or have a slow win condition in general. These factors make it generally favored against slower decks like Natura Dragon and Roach Forest, and moderately unfavored against proactive midrange decks like Natura Forest/Sword and Elana Haven that run a lot of Wards and have AoE and/or a better early game. The deck is one of the best counters to Natura Dragon in the current Rotation format, which make it a decent ladder deck and a fine pick for a secondary (as in, non-Dragon) deck in tournament lineups.

The mulligan strategy for Roach Forest involves trying to fulfill 2 goals: spend your mana in the early turns and draw cards. The primary goal is to find Liza, of course; the 1-of Hoverboard Mercenary is specifically played in the deck in order to start drawing early (if you don’t keep Merc, you can run out of followers to draw with it later). If you have a Roach in your opening hand, it’s often correct to play it on turn 1 and then bounce it on 2 (naturally, if you don’t have a bounce, you don’t play it on 1), although there can be some exceptions (some decks can contest the turn 1 Roach, namely, Forest, Shadow and Rune, when going first), so you have to be a little patient if you expect your Roach to get cleared. Against classes that play 2-drops, keeping an early removal piece allows you to safely play Liza on 3. The exception to this is Haven, which can often develop a 1/3 on turn 3, so I wouldn’t keep Sylvan Justice against Haven. Roach Forest has deceptively little card draw when it doesn’t hit Liza early, and Whispering Woods is a fail-safe for games when you expect to run out of gas quickly: if push comes to shove, you can play it on 4 and basically guarantee to hit most of your pieces, even if it causes a bit of a tempo loss.

Optional inclusions and tech cards

• In a somewhat ironic twist of fate, Dawn’s Splendor has become a fixture in Roach Forest lists after the mini-expansion, being the best tech choice against Amataz Forest, that can incidentally also do work against Haven/Sword and fill out the early game curve. Being a Neutral card, Dawn’s Splendor doesn’t disrupt any of the tutors, and since Roach Forest is generally only a turn or two slower than Amataz Forest, drawing 1-2xDawn’s Splendor against Amataz Forest can turn the generally unfavorable matchup in Roach Forest’s favor.
• Premium removal spells like Angelic Smite and Slash of the One are tech cards against midrange decks that play big Wards (Haven in general and Natura Forest/Sword) that don’t get cleared by damage-based removal without using multiple cards. Generally speaking, Roach Forest is unfavored against decks with a lot of Wards, so if you want to have a fighting chance against Haven, at least 3-4 of these cards are necessary. All of these options are quite clunky, so they’re not great in the Roach mirror and in tempo matchups, so there is merit to cutting them for other tech cards if you’re preparing for a different field. Smite is usually better than Slash because it replaces itself and costs 4 (Slash can be drawn too late to get a discount or there can be spots where you have a Liza in play and Slash doesn’t get discounted on your evolve turns).
• Miracle of Love is the most versatile of the optional removal spells in Roach Forest. The strong point of the card is that it can both be an above-rate Ward in the midgame, or a 5-damage-for-3 removal spell. Some decks also play 1-attack 2-drops (e.g., Unicorn Knight/Blossom Spirit and things like Sneak Attack tokens), which make Miracle of Love a solid tempo play going first, since the 3/1 sticks around and potentially gets to trade up next turn. If you’re not sure what the correct tech choice is for the format you’re facing, starting with 2-3xMiracle of Love is a safe bet, and then you can trim some copies of it for more specific answers when/if necessary.
• A 1-of Hoverboard Mercenary is an optional inclusion that helps with early cycling and moderately improves Whispering Woods pulls. Playing more than 1 copy is unwise (because then it can redraw itself), but a 1-of Merc is pretty standard when preparing for a slower environment.
• Fairy Circle is an optional inclusion that helps activate Aria’s Whirlwind and Miracle of Love, but is pretty mediocre otherwise. I personally wouldn’t play Fairy Circle, but some players run it as a 1-of.
• Ward of Unkilling and Steadfast Angel are tech cards for the Roach mirror that can also have some utility against Natura Haven as well. Roach Forest has an inherent aversion to playing good cards because of deckbuilding constraints required for the Liza loop, so Steadfast Angel is literally the best Ward follower available to the deck. Ward both helps to cycle for combo pieces and prevents OTK setups and things like Agnes+Splendor, but the cards you draw from Ward of Unkilling are primarily removal spells, so it’s not a particularly good card draw effect, although it does still mean that it’s less of a dead draw in matchups that you didn’t tech for.
• Neutral 2-drops like Unica and Hnikar are tech cards against aggressive decks like Natura Shadow/Haven and other proactive decks with strong early-game tempo plays, usually played in the Sylvan Justice slot. Having a 2-drop is better than a removal spell when going first, so these cards give Forest a more proactive play in the early game and make a turn 3 Liza better. In a similar fashion, Jafnhar is also a card that can be played over a third copy of some of your removal spells (e.g., cutting 1x Justice and 1xWhirlwind), and allows to leverage evolving Rhinoceroaches better. For most intents and purposes, Miracle of Love and Kitchen are better cards in the Jafnhar slot because of the additional flexibility, but having the ability to play followers proactively can be moderately valuable, following the age-old adage of “tempo = good”.

After the mini-expansion, Roach Forest has been getting pushed out by its Aggro counterpart, due to having a rather similar matchup spread, but also having a win condition that is on average 1-2 turns slower than Amataz Forest. The deck has quite a low sample size (and notably, doesn’t have any post-patch data against Natura Haven), so its high ladder winrate is a little deceptive, and it’s likely that the deck is going to decline in terms of its ladder winrate over time. Broadly speaking, Roach Forest generally gets outperformed by Amataz Forest, has the same class slot as Amataz, and gets hosed by the same tech cards (Dawn’s Splendor), so it’s difficult to justify playing Roach Forest if you’re trying to be competitive, but it’s a novel enough deck (that is losing most of its draw engine soon) that I could see wanting to play it while it’s still around in a weaker surrounding field than Unlimited, and it does technically have a better Dragon matchup than any other deck in the format, so there’s that.

[ps2id id=’haven’/]

Mulligan priority

• Always keep Desert Pathfinder and up to one copy of Golden Bell and/or Agnes.
• Keep a proactive 2-drop, this can include Pathfinder, Featherfolk Punisher, Saintly Squeaks, Sister Falconer and Marcotte, in order of priority.
• If you have a 2-drop and you’re not keeping Golden Bell, keep a Sneak Attack.
• If you’re playing a Destiny Wing Knight list, keep it with a Golden Bell or Pathfinder. With a Bell/DWK hand, keep a non-Respite Tree-generating card as well (such as Pathfinder, Squeaks, Aether). With a DWK/ Pathfinder hand, also keep Sneak Attack.
• Keep Kel against Sword, Forest and Shadow. If you have prior knowledge that your opponent is playing Roach Forest, don’t keep Kel.
• Going second against Sword/Forest/Shadow, keep Blackened Scripture.
• Keep Confectioner against Dragon.

The mulligan strategy for Natura Haven has gotten a bit more straightforward after the City of Gold nerf and now closely resembles the mulligan plan for most other midrange-y Natura decks in the format, and mostly involves trying to hit a good early curve. A lot of Haven 2-drops work in such a way that they’re good plays off-curve, so it’s fine to have multiple 2-drops among your early draws. Kel is a very important card in board-based matchups, and it’s crucial to have interaction available as early as possible. Having an early Agnes is generally good since it speeds up your clock by a lot, and while the “highroll” draw for Haven usually involves a double Agnes opening hand, it’s important to not get stuck with a hand where you don’t have any early action, as Agnes only really comes online around turn 5-6.

Over time, I’ve come around to liking Sneak Attack on the play, because it trades quite well against most of the currently popular 2-drops (or rather, it doesn’t get traded into) and since it pops on the opponent’s 3-mana turn, it’s awkward to clear and forces your opponent to play off-curve if they do choose to remove it, so it can often push 4 (sometimes even 6) face damage. Going second, this doesn’t quite work (because a 2+2 turn is a fine turn 4 play, and sometimes your opponent can just value trade into the Sneak Attack token), but if you happen to mulligan into a Sneak Attack, it’s still generally correct to play it if you don’t have a Golden Bell, following the age-old adage of “tempo = good”.

Optional inclusions and tech cards

• Charaton, Iceflame Priest is an optional addition to Natura Haven after the mini-expansion, which particularly shines against slower midrange-y decks such as Natura Sword/Haven/Forest. The card is functionally similar to Viridia Magna, in that it’s a powerful tempo swing effect that comes online after turn 8-ish in most cases, that presents a threat by itself and usually clears an opponent’s follower at the same time. Charaton often ends up costing effectively 0-2 mana on turn 8, and it’s even possible to net mana from it (either once you get a high enough amulet count, or if you have Tree(s) that you can play before running out Charaton, effectively making the trees free), so it’s often possible to develop a threat alongside Charaton, which makes proactive cards like Shiva a higher priority in post-mini-expansion Natura Haven lists, and conversely, makes reactive threats like Viridia Magna and Featherfolk Gardener worse. Charaton has mostly eclipsed slower reactive cards from recent builds of Natura Haven, with most lists running 2-3 copies.
• Feather Rush is an optional inclusion in 3xCharaton lists that helps against slower Natura decks like Natura Sword/Dragon/Forest. After the Agnes nerf, Natura Haven lists have started trimming Craving’s Splendor down to 0 or 1 copies, which means that the archetype that the deck has lost a lot of reach. Feather Rush is a card that is more or less a dead draw before turn 8, but once you have a high enough Amulet count, it effectively turns into a 3-cost burn spell that hits the opponent for 5. Because the card is so narrow in its application, it’s difficult to justify running more than 1 copy, and it’s questionable whether the inclusion is necessary in the first place, as it’s often a dead draw against a non-negligible portion of the field (e.g., Aggro Forest, Natura Shadow, Leod Sword), but 1/1 and 0/1 splits with Craving’s Splendor are reasonably common.
• Kel, Holy Marksman (and Viridia Magna) are optional catch-all inclusions that help against midrange decks. Natura Haven loses games when it falls behind on board and doesn’t draw its interaction, so having at least a 2xKels is the absolute minimum if you want to have a shot at beating Natura Sword/Haven/Forest/Shadow, and I generally believe 3xKel to be correct. Viridia Magna has fallen out of favor because it competes with Charaton, and the best-performing Natura Haven lists (so far) all run 0xViridia Magna and 3xCharaton. I personally like a 1-of Viridia Magna in a ladder list, because a disproportionately high (when compared to the tournament meta) chunk of ladder games are various midrange decks in Sword/Shadow, so the card is likely worse in a highly Dragon-saturated environment.
• Blackened Scripture and Imina, Mad Eidolon are functionally similar optional inclusions to Kel. Scripture has the additional utility of answering early Last Words effects (e.g., Pathfinder, Pteranodon in Dragon, Helio in Shadow, etc.) and it can also function as a 2-drop of sorts in a pinch. Imina really shines against other midrange decks like Natura Sword/Forest/Shadow, and mostly serves as a faster Viridia Magna. The important part of Imina is that it’s a removal effect that doesn’t require you to spend any evolve points, so it helps to save evos for Kel or enhanced Daffodil, and has fringe utility of being able to evolve to pop a Golden Bell on 5. You can usually get some advantage even if you can’t manage to break the symmetry of the metaphorical game of hot potato, since the Totem still enables things like Sainty Squeaks/DWK, discounts Agnes and makes it so that your opponent has to play around the Totem, which is relevant for the Sword matchup (since it can hit Leod in the late game). Imina has some redundancy issues with itself (since there can’t be more than 1 Totem on one side of the board at a time), so it’s not a great 3-of, but running 1 copy as a 4th Kel is not unreasonable.
• Craving’s Splendor is an optional inclusion that affects the speed of the Haven clock. The card pairs with evolved Agnes and the Sneak Attack token to generate 8-9 damage for 3 mana. Splendor is important against Roach Forest, Natura Shadow and in the Haven mirror, as it makes the difference between being able to close out the game before the Roach player goes off, or before the Shadow player gets to a Lubelle turn post-Thoth, or before the Haven player gets to turn 10 and starts healing with Aether. The failure case for the card is a 4-damage removal spell for 3, which is not great, but can have situational utility to clear out Wards such as Bayleon and Bayle. The card has obviously fallen off after the Agnes nerf, and has been relegated to a 1-of in most lists. Natura Haven players are looking for more reach to replace the card’s pre-patch functionality , so there is a good amount of damage-related 1-ofs (Feather Rush, Sister Falconer, Gourmet Emperor’s Kitchen, etc.) being tested with varying degrees of success. I personally believe that it’s better to go more midrange-y, with an extra Shiva/Viridia Magna, instead of trying to run highly situational damage cards, though Aggro Forest and Natura Dragon are matchups that you’re likely to lose percentages in.
• Sister Falconer is an optional 2-drop that can be included if you’re looking for some extra damage. The card used to be a staple in the deck following the CoG nerf, but has been on a gradual downward trend over the course of November, and it generally didn’t make the cut in the brief period of time after the mini-expansion. After the Agnes nerf, Haven lists have started to look for more damage, so Sister Falconer has had a bit of a resurgence and is starting to show up as a 1-of. The card to cut for Falconer is usually Scripture or a third Confectioner, so I personally don’t really like cutting any cards for Sister Falconer, but there is merit to doing so, particularly against decks like Aggro Forest/Leod Sword.
• Alchemical Confectioner is an optional inclusion that helps in slower matchups, such as the Haven mirror, Natura Sword/Dragon/etc. The card can be awkward against Roach and Shadow, but it should be noted that a big chunk of Confectioner draws are damage cards (Agnes/Punisher/Saintly Squeaks/Sneak Attack/Daffodil), with Aether/Viridia Magna/Respite being the only “misses”. In a standard-ish Natura Haven build, the high-value draws (Agnes, Daffodil and Viridia Magna) have roughly a ~30% probability for each of the 2 draws, meaning roughly a 50% of getting at least 1 of the good draws from a Confectioner, though a lot of the “bad” draws also replace themselves, so they’re not necessarily bad value either. Long story short, Confectioner is a lot of value and has a good probability of hitting high-impact cards. The card is fairly cuttable if you need card slots for early game cards, but 2-3xConfectioners seem necessary if you want to have a shot at beating Natura Dragon/Forest and the Haven mirror.
• Shiva is a tech card for the Haven mirror. The card is a solid play on turns 6 and 8. The Haven mirror often ends up as a race before turn 10 (which is a huge turning point since that’s when Aether healing comes online), and Shiva creates a significant health swing and puts up a vanilla Ward in the way of Storm cards. After the mini-expansion, Shiva has gone from a 1-of to a 2-of in 3xCharaton lists, because it pairs up with a turn 8 Charaton nicely, and having access to the 4-8 damage it brings to the table in grindy matchups can be significant. The opportunity cost of running at least a 1-of Shiva in any kind of slower midrange deck is so negligible that there’s very little reason not to do so, especially if you’re looking for a smidge of extra finishing power, so it’s reasonable to include 2, especially considering how Haven has lost damage after the Agnes nerf.
• Dawn’s Splendor is a tech card for primarily Amataz Forest, and to an extent, other Storm-based setups in decks such as Roach Forest and Natura Haven. The card is occasionally played in the Scripture slot, and it’s also possible to trim a third Pathfinder for it. For this type of effect to be relevant in the matchup where you need it, it’s necessary to run at least 2 copies, which makes it an awkward fit. Personally, I believe that Dawn’s Splendor is an aggressively bad tech choice for specifically Natura Haven, as the archetype is better suited to racing other uninteractive setups and because generic Wards (e.g., Shiva/Viridia Magna/Daffodil/etc.) are more universally useful and can still protect you from Amataz setups without being a vanilla Fighter against Dragon and most variations of Sword/Shadow.

Natura Haven has been performing significantly worse after the Agnes nerf. While there isn’t a lot of data available after the patch, it appears that the balance change has made the deck perform worse across the board against any inevatability-based archetypes (Natura Dragon/Shadow, Aggro Forest), however, the shift to more midrange-y builds has made the deck slightly better against fair, board-control-based decks (namely, Natura Forest/Artifact Portal, as well as Midrange Sword, if one were to consider Midrange Levin Sword a deck). The archetype has been falling off in terms of tournament representation (although, again, there hasn’t been a lot of events after the patch), but despite its low overall popularity, the deck has still been performing fairly well, namely, it’s been doing better than the popular Natura Forest and various currently off-meta decks (such as Natura Shadow/Roach Forest/Leod Sword/etc.), and it’s on par with decks like Amataz Forest and Natura Sword in terms of its results. In my opinion, the players’ kneejerk reaction to the Agnes nerf is overblown, Natura Haven definitely has some bad matchups, but it’s nevertheless one of the better-performing decks of the format. Realistically speaking, there is very little time left before the new set, so it could be that players will never actually manage to find the well-refined builds of post-nerf Natura Haven, but I do believe that Natura Haven has a lot of potential currently, even if it’s currently overshadowed by Dragon/Forest.

Optional inclusions and tech cards

• Iridescent Sphinx is an optional high-end inclusion that can be played in the Eachtar/Olivia slot. Unlike Eachtar, Sphinx is not conditional (as in, doesn’t require Shadows), is better proactively (since it develops a body with Ambush to stick buffs onto, and puts a Ward with a sizable butt into play), but is 1 mana slower. The good thing about Sphinx is that it can be discounted with Limonia tokens, meaning that it can often come down on turn 7 (after a turn 6 Limonia) or even turn 6 with an on-curve Limonia, and for decks like Natura Shadow/Forest a turn 6 Sphinx can be difficult to deal with. I’m personally not convinced that the card is better than Eachtar, but it has a lot more merit as a bomb in a Limonia package rather than a clunky 8-drop in Natura lists, so there could be some merit to the card, especially considering the fact that it’s one of the few high-end Elana cards that doesn’t get cleared by Viridia Magna.
• Unicorn Knight, Hoverboard Mercenary and Robofalcon are all optional 2-drops that have marginal advantages compared to one another. Unicorn Knight lets you curve out better as it always gives you a passable turn 3 play, Hoverboard Mercenary is the most value-oriented option that can be helpful in slower matchups. Robofalcons used to be a core card in the deck when the format was a lot more midrange-y, and the card is still a great tempo option, particularly in combination with Precant, however, it seems like Unicorn Knight is a more well-performing choice currently. The currently popular split seems to be 2/2 Unicorn/Falcon with no Hoverboard Mercs.
• Realm of Repose used to be considered a tech card, but has become a fixture in recent Elana lists. The card has two functions: on one hand, it stops OTK and pseudo-OTK setups (e.g., Roach Forest, Natura Dragon or Agnes with Craving’s Splendor), and, on the other, it can generate a tall board that is immune to Viridia Magna. After De La Fille rotated out, Servant of Repose has been seeing play in Elana lists, and having a similar trigger between the two cards makes Realm of Repose moderately better.
• Blackened Scripture is a tech card against Roach Forest (banishes Liza), as well as Pathfinder decks, such as Natura Shadow, Dragon and Sword.

Elana Haven has seen an uptick in popularity after the CoG nerf, although the surge of popularity was quite short-lived, as players have rapidly found out that the archetype is plagued by a lot of the same issues as before: Elana Haven is weak to efficient removal cards like Viridia Magna, Ladica and things like Yuzuki/Calamity Bringer, it doesn’t have any reach and primarily relies on generating boards of tall idiots, and it shares its class slot with Natura Haven. All of these factors are still in place even after the mini-expansion, and despite the deck getting better against Natura Haven after the Agnes, Elana Haven is still a deck that I wouldn’t recommend playing to anyone trying to be competitive. Elana Haven does fairly well against Amataz decks and Roach Forest, but gets hosed by Natura Dragon and doesn’t do particularly well against Natura Sword or Forest. The current preliminary data on the Natura Haven matchup points to it being Elana-favored, but that has not been consistent with my testing, so I’m not convinced that it’s 75/25, and I would expect the percentage to even out at ~55/45 (in favor of Elana Haven), based on previously available matchup data.

[ps2id id=’sword’/]

Optional inclusions and tech cards

• Dualblade Flurry has become a fixture in Natura Sword lists after the Agnes nerf, as it greatly improves the Leod plan, which is particularly relevant against Dragon. Not every matchup is a Leod matchup, so the card can be a dead draw against decks like Natura Forest (because of May/Ladica), but the overall popularity of Natura Dragon makes at least 1-2xDualblade Flurry more or less mandatory.
• Dawn’s Splendor is a tech card against Amataz Forest. While Sword does run a lot of Wards and a has a reasonably fast win condition, a lot of Sword’s 2-drops are very replaceable (e.g., Valse/Usurpring Spineblade), so it’s not too difficult to find 1-2 card slots for Dawn’s Splendor. I personally don’t believe that Dawn’s Splendor is particularly necessary in Sword, but there is merit to running the card if you’re expecting to face a lot of Amataz Forest.
• Shiva is a broad tech card against grindy midrange decks like Natura Haven/Forest/Dragon, and can be a fine 2- or even a 3-of inclusion. Most midrange decks in the Rotation format can afford to play 1xShiva without losing much, and the card has a bit of extra synergy in Sword when played on curve, since the turn 8 4-damage Shiva shot lines up with your usual Swift Tigress/Mistolina/Albert turn (following a turn 7 Levin Sisters, for example). In addition to that, if you have a Leod in play that you’re sticking Bayleon buffs on, the turn 7 Shiva buff also gives you 2 extra damage. The downside to Shiva is that it’s an awkward play on turns outside of 6 and 8. It’s no Zilliax, that’s for sure, but it’s close enough: neutral Healing, efficient stats and occasionally even some reach are something that every midrange-y deck without a specific limiting synergy might want to include.

Natura Sword is a deck that can consistently put pressure on reactive decks and had enough Wards and Storm cards to keep Amataz Forest in check, which makes it a decently well-performing deck. Sword generally struggles against decks that can interact with their boards efficiently and have some healing, which includes Natura Haven/Forest/Shadow. Broadly speaking, Sword exists to punish decks which lack interaction, and while it shares a lot of traits with Natura Forest, it has a way better matchup against Dragon, which is relevant with how popular Dragon is currently. With those factors in mind, Natura Sword is a well-rounded deck in the current environment, although I personally believe that its tournament representation is a lot higher than its actual results would suggest.

Regarding (Midrange) Levin Sword

Identifying cards: Lounes, Levin Justice, Jeno, Levin Stalwart, Levin Archer, Tsubaki of the Demon Blade, Levin Scholar, Regal Wildcat.

Midrange Sword builds based around the “Levin package” and some semblance of token generation (with cards like Cybercannoneer/Elegance in Action/Floral Fencer/etc.) have been seeing some experimentation after the mini-expansion. The idea of the deck is that it combines the pay-off effects from Tsubaki/Regal Wildcat with a Levin package, with the “token package” being the deck’s primary finisher and the “Levin package” being the deck’s midgame package. The two packages have some fringe synergy with one another (e.g., you can Regal Wildcat an enhanced Lounes on turn 10 for 10 Storm damage), but my personal impression from playing the archetype, playing against it, looking at ladder and tournament results is that MidLevin Sword is more or less strictly worse than Natura Sword in all aspects. The archetype is getting a lot of support in the new set, so it’s interesting to look at current builds to see how it can be improved once the new cards are out.

Looking at the available matchup data for Midrange Sword shows that it has a very similar matchup spread to Natura Sword, except most of its actual percentages are significantly worse. Similarly to Natura Sword, the deck seeks to exploit decks not running enough interaction, so it naturally does fairly well against Amataz and Roach Forest, but loses to Natura Dragon/Haven/Forest. In my personal opinion, the archetype is not worth playing in its current iteration, but turning it into an Evolve-based shell is something that I could see working with the support it’s getting in the new set.

[ps2id id=’portal’/]

Optional inclusions and tech cards

• Dawn’s Splendor is a tech card against Amataz Forest and, to a lesser extent, Natura Haven. Artifact Portal is particularly vulnerable to Storm cards, and and Dawn’s Splendor can potentially give you enough time to set up a wide board that the Forest player can’t interact with. Portal has a pretty big 2-drop problem, and Dawn’s Splendor is a better option that a lot of the class-specific 2-drop option like Shin/Prototype Warrior, so it’s difficult to justify not running at least 1-2 copies of Dawn’s Splendor.
• Mugnier, Purifying Light is primarily a tech card against Sword that also has utility against Dragon/Shadow. The main usage case of Mugnier against Sword is answering Leod, which Portal normally can’t interact with. Mugnier also happens to be a good on-curve option against Pathfinder/Pteranodon decks (Natura Dragon/Haven/Shadow/Forest), it can remove Last Words effects from cards post-Thoth against Shadow and can pick up random fringe value in a variety of other cases (e.g., it can remove ongoing effects from various cards, such as Ward and other beneficial effects) and can even answer Amulets, which is relevant against Arcane Item Shop decks, for example. The card happens to get a lot of incidental value in a lot of matchups, and the 2-mana slot in current Artifact Portal lists is not particularly competitive, with the only flex options being Mugnier and Dawn’s Splendor; for these reasons, I believe that it’s fine to run some combination of 3-6 combined copies of these 2 cards.
• Absolute Modesty is a card that I would personally consider a core inclusion. The card serves 2 purposes, on one hand, it can be a highly tempo-efficient piece of early interaction, and on the other hand, it can ping the opponent for 2-3 damage a turn in the late game. In my testing, Absolute Modesty can feel like a bit of a trap if you try to maximize the value from it by running bad cards like Hydro Alchemist/Prototype Warrior, but I believe that it’s wrong to play bad cards to make good cards slightly better. Absolute Modesty is a solid card and can get a lot of value when combined with chip damage from Ines/Shiva/etc., but it’s not really an effect to build around excessively.
• Dazzling Archer is mostly just a bad Mechanization, but it helps with Maisha/Shion setups and makes early Artifact Calls more consistent. The card is a dead draw in the later stages of the game, but it does align well with the deck’s game plan, even if it’s not particularly efficient at doing so. Artifact Portal in Rotation doesn’t have enough Artifact-shuffling effects, and if I have to make a choice between playing Archer and Angel of the Iron Steed, one of these choices is a lot faster than the other and allows for a turn 2 Artifact Call. Apart from that, Rotation-legal options include Prototype Warrior/Alpha Core (which shuffle Bifurcating Artifacts, that I don’t ever want to see in my hand; both of these cards also make it less likely to draw Displacer Bot/Mechagun Wielder with Magna Giant/Hoverboard Merc), various Radiant Artifact generators (which aren’t something you really want for Shion setups and don’t help Maisha) and Tylle (see Bifurcating Artifacts). In that sense, Dazzling Archer is the lesser of the available evils, and as such, is a premier choice if you feel like you need to shuffle extra Artifacts. If you’re playing a 3xShion list, at least 1-2xArchers seem necessary. When is Biofab getting reprinted? Hell, I would even take a Metaproduction, I’m not picky.
• Hoverboard Mercenary is an optional inclusion that improves your odds of finding Displacer Bot. Running more than 2 copies can be awkward since it can draw itself (and Magna Giant can draw into it), but even if you just cycle a few cards and end the chain on a Mechagun, it’s still decent value and works well with the deck’s game plan.
• Maisha has been slowly getting relegated to an optional inclusion after the Shion buff. The card is still a fine play on-curve, and can give the archetype some inevitability, but it’s not that necessary in a 3xShion list. In my opinion, at least 2xMaisha seem necessary, but it’s one of the cards that you can easily trim if you play against decks that you can’t interact with, such as Roach Forest/Aggro Sword/etc., although at that point you have to wonder why you’re trying to play Artifact Portal in the first place.
• The standard suite of optional Artifact Portal 4-drops, which includes Alterplane Onslaught/Icarus/Lishenna/Hamelin, are potential inclusions regardless of what type of Artifact Portal list you’re trying to build. Onslaught has a lot of good banish targets in the current format, so it’s fairly popular currently, and Icarus helps set up the Maisha combo (since it can fetch Augmentation and Mechanization, among other things). Lishenna and Hamelin have been phasing out of Portal lists because they’re too slow to make the cut, but they’re not bad cards in general, just a poor fit for the current meta.
• Shiva is an optional 1-of that helps against primarily Natura Haven. Shiva is a fine card and Artifact Portal generally needs a way to protect itself against Haven and things like OTK Roach setups (although Shiva isn’t all that great at stopping Roach, since you still die to the 3xRoach combo with any one bounce effect).
• Licht, Puppet Shock and Zwei form a healing package that is a broad tech choice against Haven and Shadow. Puppet cards in general speed up the Maisha setup, because they generate dead followers, and Puppet Shock is simply a fine stand-alone card that you’re always pretty happy to play against midrange decks. The Puppet package is difficult to fit in a standard Shion shell, but it’s a fine fit for slower Portal builds.
• Awakened Ragna is a tech card against Leod and a potential janky win condition. In the overwhelming majority of games, the card’s not going to be a win condition, but having the flexibility of playing it on 9 (after clearing the board with Acceleratium/Augmentation discounts) can be valuable. The setup is as follows: evolve Maisha at a random point in the game, then play Ragna on 9, pick the “Banish everything” token, save it, and then Blade of Purgation the bloody thing next turn for 14 damage. With a Shiva proc on 8, this combo more or less closes out the game on the spot, but it’s so slow that it’s only really realistically applicable against exactly Elana Haven and Natura Forest. Ragna decks built in a similar fashion to the pre-Rotation Puppet/Silva Portal builds are a fringe deck that basically includes all of the generic good Portal cards, but the deck is still mostly a Maisha deck (with Orchis+Shiva being an alternate semi-wincon), so I wouldn’t personally call it a “Ragna deck” per se, but it’s not Artifact Portal, it does run Ragna and, most importantly, it sure is a Shadowverse deck.
• Shin, Lawful Light says Ward on it, so it’s a tech card against Haven and Roach Forest. In my opinion, the Licht package is a better tech choice against Haven, and the Roach matchup still feels like pure misery, regardless of how many vanilla 2/2 Wards you choose to include.

Artifact Portal is a relatively unpopular deck currently, but it has seen some fringe success in tournament play after the Anges nerf. Generally speaking, the deck is unfavored against Natura Dragon and Haven, but it does decently well against Aggro Forest (because it often runs 2-3xDawn’s Splendor) and Sword in general (because it often runs 2-3xMugnier), and the deck’s ability to have aggressive openings with Shion and its capacity to play a slow reactive game make it a decent ladder deck. The archetype has gotten the most use out of mini-expansion cards out of any deck in the Rotation format, and one of its bad matchups got hit by a nerf, so I do believe that the deck has a fair bit of potential, but it’s unlikely to get refined to a sufficient extent before Mechanization rotates out.

[ps2id id=’shadow’/]

Optional inclusions and tech cards

• Cerberus and Ceres are optional cards that compete for the same slot and signify the split between the more proactive and the more defensive builds of the deck. Cerberus puts more stats into play and progresses the Thoth condition, particularly if you can get its evolve buff on cards without a Last Words effect. Ceres trades better, heals you for more and can be problematic for some decks to clear, making it a better defensive option against Natura Haven/Shadow/Sword. Ceres discounts are not something you can afford to do every game because Trees and Respites/Pathfinders don’t get discounted, so you often can’t get to Vow into multiple 2-drops. Ceres itself does technically slow down the “Thoth quest” progression, but if you can get a discount on Thoth, Living Dog and Lubelle at the same time, you can sometimes play Lubelle into 2-3xTrees, activate Thoth and play out Dog with the remaining Trees for an alternate plan. I’m not really sold on Ceres, and Cerberus lists have been performing better in my testing, although Ceres seems to be more popular recently.
• Legendary Skeleton is an optional inclusion that has been pushing out Sora and Aisha after the mini-expansion. Skeleton Man can be an incredibly efficient card in the midgame, as Natura Shadow often generates a lot of Shadows during Lubelle/Dog turns, so it can often be a 2-mana 5/5 with Rush and Bane and can often get a 2-for-1, which is great value and tempo. The card doesn’t get you any closer to completing the “Thoth quest”, so it doesn’t contribute to the deck’s actual win condition, but it’s such a huge tempo swing in relevant matchups that it’s difficult to justify not runnning at least 2xSkeleton Man.
• Aisha is a card that is played for its invoke effect. The only out-of-hand activator for Aisha is Manifest Malice, and although Khawy/Helio can also situationally work to enable it, it’s still not something you want to play from your hand most of the time. In Cerberus lists, the package of Khawy/Aisha means that you can run 2xAisha and not feel too bad about it (if you’re not running any other 4-drops), however, Ceres builds usually don’t run Khawy and settle for 1xAisha at most. The more Aishas you run, the more likely you are to invoke it, but you’re also more likely to draw it as well, so there is a trade-off; there are also significant diminishing returns for running more than 2 copies of the card.
• Viridia Magna is a tech card against Haven, Sword and Natura Forest that helps with board control in the later stages of the game. Compared to other Natura decks, Shadow gets 4 points of face damage out of Viridia Magna if it’s played post-Thoth (since it generates 2 different bodies), and the high popularity of Haven means that the card is more or less mandatory as at least a 2-of. Viridia Magna is also one of the few ways for Shadow to include actual Wards against Roach and Natura Haven and the 6-health threshold is awkward for Roach Forest to answer, since it dodges cards like Ephemera/Predatory Might/Kitchen/etc. It can sometimes be correct to manually evolve Viridia Magna if the Roach player is close to going off with their combo, and as painful as it is, it can still sometimes give you enough time to close out the game with Lubelle or some such.
• Alchemical Confectioner is an optional inclusion that helps against Natura Haven/Forest since it can fetch up high-value Natura cards like Lubelle and Viridia Magna. There are some whiffs (e.g., Dog and Pathfinders) that don’t cycle themselves when drawn, but if you’re playing a slower list and don’t run Khawy, Confectioner can be a fine 1- or 2-of.
• Irongear Corpsman and Disciple of Silence are tech cards for Roach Forest. The way Corpsman works in a deck with no other Machina cards is that if you have a playset of it and play one of them in the early game, later copies generate an extra copy of themselves for 6 Shadows, making for a worse Death’s Breath of sorts if you have 12 Shadows saved up. Naturally, if you don’t have any dead Machina followers, Corpsman doesn’t activate, even if you have the Shadows for it. Disciple takes up fewer card slots than Corpsman, but it doesn’t stop most of Roach lethal setups when it’s cast for 3 mana (e.g., 3 Roaches with 1 bounce effect or 3 Roaches with a 5-damage removal spell still get through it), so you often have to pay its Enhance cost (which still leaves you dead to 3 Roaches with 1 bounce effect, but at least dodges removal spells better). Low-cost Wards in general are neat with Thoth because the opponent has to clear them and they deal their 2 damage when removed, and while it’s not as good as cycling Trees, it still gets around the issue of having to kill off your followers to get Thoth damage.
• Osiris is a card that has a lot of synergy in Natura Shadow, namely, it can triple-dip on the Thoth synergy if played on curve after Helio when going second. The weak point of Osiris is that it doesn’t trade particularly well in the midgame and is mostly outperformed by Sora in that function. Sora can clear multiple followers from the opposite side of the board, and is a lot more flexible because 2 is less 4. Hellfire Hound is functionally similar to Osiris, but it’s still usually worse than Sora because of the higher Shadow requirement and casting cost. There could be a shift in the format where Osiris becomes a better fit for the archetype (card’s pretty sweet if you get both of its triggers), but this is not the case with the current popularity of Natura Haven and other decks that play multiple followers in their midgame turns (e.g., Natura Sword/Forest).
• Various 2-drops such as Deadly Dreamer and Buffalo Bones have seen fringe play because they can potentially improve Thoth consistency, however both of those cards have been getting cut because their impact is too small. Mino, Crafty Reaper is in a similar category (albeit, not a 2-drop), of cards that could potentially be good if you want to enable Thoth as early as possible, but don’t make the cut because of their low overall card quality.
• Guilt, Existential Blader is an optional inclusion that has 2 purposes: on one hand, it allows to cycle faster, and on the other, it can pop allied followers post-Thoth for a bit of extra damage. Soul Conversion doesn’t have a lot of good targets in the current Shadow builds, since the only way to generate Ghosts is Manifest Malice, which is not sufficient in the early stages of the game, and most of Natura Shadow followers are not something you would want to eat with SoulCon because the current meta has such a huge emphasis on tempo. Guilt can be a passable 1-of, but it’s a pretty greedy card since it only comes online post-Thoth, around turn 7-8.

Natura Shadow is a decently well-performing deck, however, it does struggle against Amataz Forest, and unlike Dragon, it does a lot worse against Sword since it doesn’t run a lot of interaction and has no way of clearing Leod, which makes the archetype’s recent performance a lot worse. Natura Shadow is in an awkward spot of the format’s “rock-paper-scissors” food chain, it doesn’t beat Dragon, but it does reasonably well against both Natura Forest and Sword. Preliminary data suggests that it does extremely well against Natura Haven, but there’s not a whole lot of data available, so I’d recommend taking that exact percentage with a grain of salt. The deck is still very consistent and has a linear game plan, so it’s a fine deck to play on ladder, even if it’s not as good as Natura Dragon/Forest/Sword/Haven currently.

Addendum: Lubelle multicast RNG

It’s no secret that Lubelle is a very powerful card, being both the win condition and enabler of a good chunk of Thoth damage. A particular aspect of Lubelle is that each of the summoned tokens can generate an additional Tree 1/3rd of the time, meaning that there is a non-negligible probability of continuing the chain when Lubelle is played, even when you only start with a limited amount of Trees. This question of probabilities has an analytical solution, as it’s possible to create a recursive probability tree by writing down the terms for each of the outcomes using a simple binomial distribution with a p=1/3, which can be found in this little spreadsheet . The basic assumption is that you start with 1 Tree already in play; that the Shadow player is not limited by mana, the opponent has a Heavenly Aegis in play (meaning Necrofamily tokens always have something to trade into), and the Shadow player has a Reliquary Tower out and that the deck doesn’t run out of cards. In this perfect universe, we arrive at the following discrete probability distributions for the configurations of 0 through 4 (extra) starting Trees, with portions of the distribution for extra Necrofamilies of more than 10 being omitted.

In the perfect universe, the expected average value of additional Necrofamilies is exactly 0.5 per every starting Tree in your hand. With just the starting 2 Necrofamilies (0 starting Trees), the average number of Necrofamilies is 2 + 0.5 * 2 = 3, with 1 starting Tree, the average number is 3 + 0.5 * 3 = 4.5, with 2 Trees it’s 4 + 0.5 * 4 = 6, and so on. With that said, we’re obviously not living in a perfect universe, and the most common constraint (mana costs) affects higher terms of the distribution, where the chain gets to a certain point and then stops because you can’t cast any more Trees, even with perfect RNG. With that in mind, introducing mana limitations into the system gives some more reasonable estimates, for example, for the case of 8 total mana (assuming Lubelle costs 5), we arrive at:

In this case, we only get an extra 0.815 Necrofamilies if we’re starting with no Trees, and 0.704 extra Necrofamilies if we’re starting with 1 Tree, so while the overall average is higher, there are some diminishing returns. This is an example that’s relevant for the case of completing the “Thoth quest” on turn 7, and then going off on turn 8. Since each Necrofamily does 2 damage and each destroyed Tree does another 2, we get 9.26 damage on average (since the first Tree doesn’t do damage) starting with no Trees, and 12.816 damage starting with 1 Tree. If we fulfil the Thoth requirement a turn later, and go off with Lubelle on turn 9, we get the following:

For the case of 0 starting Trees, we get an extra 0.926 Necrofamilies, for 1 Tree we get an extra 1.111 Necrofamily, and for 2 Trees we get an extra 0.802 Necrofamilies. Once again, there are slight diminishing returns for higher Tree counts because you don’t have enough mana to cast more Trees after a certain point. With 0 starting Trees, we get 9.704 damage on average; with 1xTree, we get an average of 14.444 damage, and with 2xTrees, we get 17.208 damage. Notably, you only get ~0.5 extra damage from the additional point of mana for the case of 0 starting Trees, but the difference grows rapidly for the non-zero cases. Lastly, for the case of 5 open mana (e.g., if you Lubelle on 10 or if you have discount Lubelle with Ceres and go off on turn 8), the following distribution is obtained:

For 0xTrees, we get an extra 0.971 Necrofamilies; for 1xTree, 1.321 Necrofamilies; for 2xTrees, extra 1.342 Necrofamilies; for 3xTrees, an extra 0.868 Necrofamilies. The average damage for 0 starting Trees ends up as 9.884 (only ~0.2 more than with 4 open mana); for 1xTree, we get 15.284 average damage; for 2xTrees, we get 19.368 average damage; for 3xTrees, we get 21.472 average damage.

To summarize the findings, the most efficient time to play Lubelle post-Thoth completion is when you have the amount of 1-cost Trees equal to the amount of your open mana (after casting Lubelle), subtracting 2; e.g., for a turn 8 Lubelle the most efficient outcome is at 1 starting Tree (3.704 at 1 Trees, ~0.3 damage less that the guaranteed 2-Tree setup). The 2 main conclusions are as follows: firstly, there is very little difference ( ~0.3 – 0.15 Necrofamilies, or ~1.2 – 0.6 damage) between casting Lubelle with the full amount of required Trees and 1 less than necessary, basically, Lubelle almost guarantees that you get the last Tree you need; secondly, it’s a bad idea to case Lubelle with no other Trees in hand, regardless of how much mana you have open. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, of course, and the results are intuitive, but I believe there is merit to question the intuitive preconceptions, especially when it comes to games of random chance.

[ps2id id=’blood’/]

Machina Blood

Identifying cards: Robogoblin, Hoverboard Mercenary, Gearsnake Tamer, Metal-Blade Demon, Mono, Garnet Rebel, Technolord, Slayn, Steelwrought Vampire.

What changed in Machina Blood?

The only card that rotated out of pre-expansion Machina Blood lists is Restless Parish, which is quite important for Slayn, but it’s certainly very replaceable. The new additions to Machina Blood include Shiva, which is a fine 1- or even 2-of, as well as potentially Leraje and Deal with the Devil. Leraje is not particularly unfair and disrupts Unleash the Nightmare pulls, so I personally don’t think that the card is good enough for Slayn Machina Blood. Deal with the Devil can often be lined up in a way where the removal part of the card is one-sided and the fact that it’s a removal spell that replaces itself with a different card makes stacking your hand for Slayn easier. Apart from that, I don’t think there is much of a difference between the pre-rotation build of Machina Blood and its current iteration, so I don’t think there’s much merit to repeating all the points made about Machina Blood in the September MI update.

Aggro Blood

Identifying cards (generic): Goblin, Razory Claw, Swarming Wraith, Furfur, Yuna, Vampire Seeker.
Identifying cards (Vengeance): Steadfast Angel, Nightmare Dreameater, Dark General, Seductress Vampire.
Identifying cards (non-Vengeance):Disciple of Lust, Vuella, Imp Lancer, Demonic Storm.

There are 2 approaches to building Aggro Blood: the Seductress Vamp build, which can include cards like Laura and Dark General, in addition to being able to leverage Vengeance-based 2-drops better, with such cards as Swarming Wraith and Nightmare Dreameater. This build of the deck is similar to pre-nerf Vengeance Blood and can often “brick” by drawing Seductress Vampire too late. Another way to build Aggro Blood is to run Imp Lancers with some additional handbuff effects. The advantage of the non-Vengeance build is that it can fit in more burn with Demonic Storm and can run Disciples of Lust over Steadfast Angels (since health total is less important for the non-Vengeance build).

The main idea behind Aggro Blood is to exploit weak early turns of decks such as Natura Dragon and Roach Forest by getting ahead on tempo with 1-drops. Being ahead enables Hellblaze Demons to generate a good chunk of damage with the Storm card of choice (Imp Lancer/Laura/etc.), and Yuna helps reload your hand after expending cards in the early turns. Ideally, the deck aims to close out games on turn 6, seeing as how a lot of decks in the format can start to stabilize with Shiva and various other defensive cards. The format has a large variety of incidental healing (particularly, in Haven/Shadow), with Neutral cards like Respite and Shiva being staples in different decks, which makes burn-based aggressive strategies somewhat awkward. Aggro Blood is not a particularly popular or well-refined deck, but it has its strong points in the format.

Natura Blood has been showing some very mediocre ladder winrates, the deck is heavily unfavored against Natura Haven/Dragon/Shadow, and it appears that the archetype is too fair to consistently beat any of the currently competitive Rotation decks. With that said, Evolve Natura Blood has had some fringe success in tournament play previously, so I don’t think that the archetype is a lost cause. The deck is somewhat draw-dependant (drawing early Destructive Succubi is important), and there is a lot of inherent randomness to it because of its win condition (going second is a significant advantage; Zeus variance can cost you games; Cradle discarding key pieces like Aether/Succubi/Zeus/etc. can be problematic), the deck didn’t get a single playable card in the mini-expansion while 2 of its worst matchups have gotten a lot of new tools. All of these may seem like negative factors, but the silver lining here is that it’s not really losing any cards with the Omen rotation (except for Trill, which is a flex slot), so the only way for Blood to go is up. Of the Blood cards that were revealed so far, Creeping Madness is an amazing card even if the whole self-damage thing doesn’t end up panning out, and Lucius (as well as maybe Illya) could have enough Evolve synergy even without any other applications in the deck.

[ps2id id=’rune’/]

The new toys in Dirt Rune are Silent Lab (replaces Vesper) and Passionate Potioneer (swapped in over one of the high-end cards like Tetra or Erasmus). Dirt Rune is fundamentally the same deck as it was before the VeC expansion, however, it leans a lot more into its aggressive angle and is less of a midrange deck. Potioneer allows for more consistent Magisa setups, but the overall elevated power level of the format puts the deck in an awkward spot with all the incidental healing from decks with incremental Natura synergy, since they run Traveler’s Respite; Haven in general is difficult to race due to Kel and smaller healing effects like Golden Bells, and Shadow often runs Ceres, which is a huge commitment to clear and heals for a significant amount. In addition to that, Blackened Scripture, Octrice and even Smite in Roach lists make playing out OriGolem on 5 extremely risky in the relevant matchups. The format is generally less friendly towards aggressive strategies, and Dirt Rune gets swept up by that as well.

Regarding Natura Rune

Identifying cards: Arcane Aether, Desert Pathfinder, Apex Elemental, Travelers’ Respite, Pyromancer, Viridia Magna, Riley, Hydroshaman.

Natura Rune is still in a very unrefined place, the most well-tested build of the deck (in a Spellboost shell) doesn’t perform particularly well and doesn’t really beat anything in the format. The reason for that is, as one would expect, the shell itself being inefficient for a Spellboost strategy: you can’t fit in enough Spells and Tree-generating effects for Riley to work. The basic takeaway is that the deck plays 1-2xRiley with 2-3xMysterian Wisdom to shuffle it back into the deck when the condition is fulfilled, and then uses burn spells, Zealots, Twinblade Mages and Craving’s Splendor to close out the game. The problem with that build of the deck is twofold: on one hand, Riley is impossible to cast, and invoking it takes too long; and on the other hand, the draw engine doesn’t really function, so the deck can end up spinning its wheels in the midgame.

An alternative to the Spellboost build can be seen in ここしろ’s build that uses Riley in a hybrid Ginger shell. The basic idea is that you try to have Ginger in your first 7-8 draws, then evolve it, and reduce the cost of Riley(s) to 1 (since it only has 1 attack anyway) and potentially even get multiple copies of high-value cards like Riley, Viridia Magna and Zeus with Mysterian Project. Since the deck can support Viridia Magna (which has evolve synergy when active), it’s reasonably good at answering midrange boards. In my personal testing, this exact point has been the strongest aspect of the deck: Natura Rune is the best deck in the format at having an active Viridia Magna on turn 6, and while that in itself doesn’t sound like much, since it also discounts Ginger in the process, you can often follow up a turn 6 Viridia Magna with a Ginger on 7, evolve the Ginger, reduce Apex Ele to 1, and clear the board while setting up for a Zeus/Riley. Even if you run out of evolves by the time you get to Ginger, you can still get to a point where you invoke Riley and then use the 4-5-cost Ginger to cheat mana and get a double Riley attack for 16, which can get to 20 damage with a Craving’s Splendor, and random chip damage from Mysterian Wisdom, Arcane Aether on 10, etc. The deck has early blowout draws (e.g., Pathfinder on 2 into Pyromancer on 3), has a decent midgame with evolve cards like Monika and Jafnhar, cycles really quickly and can sometimes go off with its 16-damage combo as early as turn 8. The weak points of Ginger Natura Rune are that the deck can’t protect itself and autoloses to Roach Forest as well as Natura Shadow and Haven, it can have some draw variance since you need at least 1 Ginger in your deck to invoke it, and, well, Zeus is a Shadowverse card. Sometimes Zeus activates 9 times and doesn’t get Storm or a single point of healing, and you just have to accept that 1%-er and move on with your life.

Dirt Rune is the most popular and the best-performing Rune deck in the Rotation format, primarily because of the addition of Medea. Medea is a fine card, but the archetype still has a lot of problems that it had before the patch and it’s still heavily unfavored against more or less every deck in the format. Part of the issue is the abundance of healing in most decks (Respite in all sorts of Natura decks, Ian in Dragon, Primal Giant in Natura Forest, Kel et al. in Natura Haven, and so on), which is mostly intended to hose decks like Amataz Forest, Natura Haven and Dragon, but also happens to incidentally make Dirt Rune significantly worse.

The state of Rune in Rotation is a little precarious, and the class is losing a lot of its key pieces across various archetypes (namely, Smelter/OriGolem in Dirt Rune, Adjudication/Raio in Spellboost Rune, though the latter has been out of the meta for a while), and the upcoming set doesn’t have any good tools for those decks. Natura Rune is getting Aeroelementalist, and it’s possible that Ginger decks are the way forward for Rune in general: printing playable support for Spellboost mechanics is tricky because Daria (as in, Daria Rune, not the card itself) is such a menace in Unlimited, and a Dirt Rune finisher doesn’t fit into the Evolve-based paradigm of the new set, so cheating 1-mana Karyls into play could be what Rune’s doing for the next 2 months.

[ps2id id=’stats’/]

Stats corner